Editing Id, ego and superego (section)

== Structural model and neuropsychoanalysis ==
[[File:Neurology Freud's three Instances.png|thumb|right|310px|The three instances of Freud’s structural model, combined with findings of modern neurology. ]]
Freud's basic metapsychological thesis is that the living ''soul'' with their needs, consciousness and memory resembles a psychological apparatus to which ''"spatial extension and composition of several pieces"'' can be attributed (...) and which ''"locus ... is the brain (nervous system)"''.<ref>Sigmund Freud: ''Abriß der Psychoanalyse''. (1938), p. 6</ref>  

Modern technology has made possible to observe the bioelectrical activity of neurones in the living brain.<ref name="Solms 133–145">{{Cite journal|last1=Solms|first1=Mark|last2=Turnbull|first2=Oliver H.|date=January 2014|title=What Is Neuropsychoanalysis?|journal=Neuropsychoanalysis|volume=13|issue=2|pages=133–145|doi=10.1080/15294145.2011.10773670 }}</ref> This led to the realisation in which area of the brain the needs for food, skin desire etc. begin to show themselves neuronally; where the highest performances of consciously thinking ego take place (s. [[frontal lobe]]); and that other parts of the brain are specialised in storing memories: one of the main function of the superego. 

Decisive for this view was Freud's [[Project for a Scientific Psychology]]. Written in 1895, it develops the thesis that experiences are stored into the neuronal network through ''"a permanent change after an event"''. Freud soon abandoned this attempt and left it unpublished.<ref>Freud, Sigmund. 1966 [1895]. "[http://users.clas.ufl.edu/burt/freud%20fleiss%20letters/200711781-013.pdf Project for a Scientific Psychology]." Pp. 347–445 in ''[[The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud|Standard Editions]]'' 3, edited by [[James Strachey|J. Strachey]]. London: [[Hogarth Press]].</ref> Insights into the neuronal processes that permanently store experiences in the brain – like engraving the proverbial [[tabula rasa]] with some code – belongs to the [[Physiology|physiological]] branch of science and lead in a different direction of research than the psychological question of what the differences between consciousness and unconsciousness are. Freud's point of view was that ''consciousness'' is directly given – cannot be explained by insights into physiological details. Essentially, two things were known about the living soul: The brain with its nervous system extending over the entire organism and the acts of consciousness. According to Freud, therefore haphazard phenomena can be integrated between "''both endpoints of our knowledge''" (findings of modern neurology just as well as the position of our planet in the universe, for example), but this only contribute to the spatial "''localisation of the acts of consciousness''", not to their understanding.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Freud |first1=Sigmund |title=Abriß der Psychoanalyse, Gesammelte Werke |date=1940 |pages=63−138, here S. 67}}</ref>